6 ways to deal with frustration

We are all familiar with the feeling of frustration, whether it is as a result of our falling short of achieving specific goals or because of someone else’s shortcomings or failure to meet up with our demands and expectations. Below are 6 ways to deal with the sometimes crippling feeling of frustration.

Know and Understand Your Triggers

Identify, learn and understand the “thing” within yourself that gets frustrated when certain things happen. You need to ask yourself why you let certain things frustrate you. When you have the answer to this question, it will be easier for you to manage your emotions and successfully deal with frustrating circumstances.

Avoid the Triggers

So far as it depends on you, avoid the triggers of your frustration. If being disturbed when working frustrates you, you can put your phone on silent or switch it off when busy. If you can’t avoid your triggers and have to deal with them, remember to think first and react never. If you discipline yourself to consciously hold yourself back from reacting to your triggers, it will soon become a learned habit and that trigger will eventually cease to be as stimulating as it once was.

Practice Stress-Management Breathing

This is a great way to avoid reacting impulsively to frustrating situations. Relaxed and regulated breathing changes the chemistry of brain and inclines you to be more thoughtful rather than impulsive and reactionary. So, before you act out of frustration, pause, slowly take in a deep breath and let it out slowly until you feel calm. If it is possible for you to walk away from the situation, please do and practice the breathing exercises until you feel calm and less impulsive.

Change Your Perspective on Frustration

The way you frame your situation goes a long way in influencing your reaction to it and emotions about it. It is easier to see frustrations as temporary setbacks or slight inconveniences you can manage, as opposed to seeing them as failures and over reacting about them. Your blood pressure, health and general well-being will thank you for it.

Talk to Someone about It

Having a supportive person or supportive people to open up to about your frustrations can be very therapeutic. It can help you better manage your emotions, unburden yourself and is generally beneficial to the regulation of your mood. Talking to someone you can trust or talking to a counselor or psychologist about your frustrations can help you discover and work out hidden issues behind these frustrations.

Learn To Manage Your Expectations of People

There are a lot of people in the world. A number of these people can at times be irrational, self-centered, unfair, demanding, inconsistent, lazy, undisciplined etc. which can be frustrating to you. You can’t afford to allow each and every one of them get to you. To avoid unnecessary health problems, you should understand that you can’t control people’s behaviors and instead focus on controlling your own reaction to their behaviors and inefficiencies.

For example, if you have to deal with someone who is always late and lateness frustrates you, rather than trying to make the person early, simply avoid inviting or involving the person in things were promptness is key.